CAGW Testifies before the Government Accountability and Transparency
Board

February 07, 2014 11:25 AM Eastern Standard Time

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Citizens Against Government Waste’s (CAGW) Director of Government
Affairs William Christian, and Director of Technology and
Telecommunications Policy Deborah Collier testified before the
Government Accountability and Transparency Board (GATB) to provide the
board with CAGW’s recommendations for greater accountability and
transparency in federal spending.

The GATB was created as part of President Obama’s Campaign to Cut Waste,
launched in June of 2013. Today’s meeting is the board’s first open
meeting.

“We know that technology is available that can help bridge the gap in
transparency between the government and the taxpayers it serves,”
Collier stated. “This technology must be used efficiently by government
agencies in order to provide the information needed to improve that
transparency and accountability.”

“While we recognize various shortcomings of the current system, we would
not suggest scrapping the platform,” Christian commented further.
“Instead, we would prefer that the current infrastructure, to include
lessons learned from its implementation to date, be remedied, rather
than starting over from scratch. Indeed, CAGW is loath to add another
example of redundant, overlapping, or duplicative procurement of federal
information technology assets to our current rogue’s gallery of waste.”

Using the government’s USASpending.gov and Recovery.gov
websites as the starting point for data transparency and greater
accountability in government spending, Christian and Collier offered the
following recommendations to the board: standardize data terminology and
enforce consistent use; provide specific funding, obligations and actual
spending levels of each program or item purchased in detail; link to the
legislation authorizing and funding the items or services purchased, and
include those authorized by the administration’s request; provide macro
level data for agency funding from year to year; and synthesize search
results in a manner that is helpful to the user.

The full statement presented by Mr. Christian and Ms. Collier can be
found here.

Citizens
Against Government Waste is the nation’s largest nonpartisan,
nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement in government.